Technicolor Star

06.06.13

Swimmer and Actress Esther Williams Dies

NBCUniversal

Famed swimmer turned Hollywood movie star Esther Williams died, Thursday, at the age of 91. Williams first made a name for herself at the 1939 national swimming championships, winning the 100-meter freestyle among others, but it was her work in several Technicolor musicals throughout the 1940s and ’50s that really made her a celebrity. Finding it harder to get work once the economy of the mid-’50s ushered out the era of expensive movie musicals, Williams retired in 1962 to be a full-time wife to onetime co-star Fernando Lamas.